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Writing copy is like drawing a comic strip

Once, I remember reading that a cartoonist said that the important part of drawing a comic strip is not actually what’s in the panels themselves, but the space between the panels. The pictures that you draw are, in fact, just bookends and anchors to your readers’ imagination. If the reader can’t use your anchors to make the transition to the next panel through the use of their imagination, then you’ve failed as a cartoonist.

This is something we as comic strip/comic book readers tend not to notice, especially when it’s done well. It’s only glaringly obvious when you can’t follow the dialog or the action due to confusing camera angles between one panel to the next or a bad panel layout.

So it is with copy on your website, or an HN title submission. Like panels on a comic strip, copy is the anchor which you bookend your visitor’s understanding and imagination. If it’s not something that stirs their curiosity, or even better, their sense of imagination, then you’ve failed to carry them from one step to the next.

And as it is with a comic strip, you can’t be overt with the copy, nor should you lie to them. That’s when people get irked and call things link baits. When done right, people don’t even notice at all.